A variety of silicone rubbers are in use recently as coating materials for textile fabric. Specific applications include decorative uses such as patches and stickers, apparel-related uses such as for preventing slippage in trousers and men's wear, and airbags used in transportation vehicles such as automobiles.
Some airbags are made by bonding together with an adhesive the outer peripheral edges of two sheets of plain-woven base fabric, each of which has been rubber-coated on the inside surface, and stitching the edges together through the adhesive layer. Such airbags are referred to herein as “plain-weave airbags.”
JP-A 2-158442 discloses an airbag in which the bag is formed by weaving and does not require bonding with an adhesive. Airbags of this type are referred to herein as “hollow-weave airbags.” Hollow-weave airbags have excellent compactibility, but are known to have one important drawback. Specifically, the coat in a hollow-weave airbag is provided on the outside surface of the airbag. During inflation, the inflator gas thus presses against the airbag from the base fabric side, which differs significantly from plain-weave airbags in which the gas presses against the airbag from the rubber coated side. As a result, when the desire has been to sustain a certain airbag inflation time, rubber coatings used in prior-art plain-weave airbags have proven to be ineffective for sustaining inflation for the same length of time in hollow-weave airbags. Accordingly, there exists a desire for coating materials which are suitable for use in hollow-weave airbags.
Silicone coatings have already been disclosed in, for example, JP-A 5-25435, JP-A 5-179203 corresponding to U.S. Pat. No. 5,258,211, JP-A 6-41874 corresponding to U.S. Pat. No. 5,208,097, JP-A 7-70923, JP-A 7-195990 corresponding to EP 663,468 and JP-A 7-300774 corresponding to U.S. Pat. No. 5,529,837. Liquid silicone coatings have been disclosed in, for example, JP-A 5-214295 corresponding to U.S. Pat. No. 5,877,256, JP-A 2000-191915 corresponding to U.S. Pat. No. 6,268,300, JP-A 2002-138249 and JP 3349516 corresponding to U.S. Pat. No. 6,586,551.
These coatings are either of a type that is dissolved in an organic solvent to lower the viscosity then applied to a substrate, or of a type which, although in an easy-to-coat liquid form, makes use of a hydrosilylation reaction. Silicone rubber coatings that utilize an organic peroxide reaction are predominantly in the form of an uncured rubber. Solvent-free liquid silicone rubber coatings that are cured by means of an organic peroxide reaction in the liquid state have not been previously reported in the literature.